Yes, such a thing does exist. I’ve checked and double checked. Plus, if the Yorkshire hubby said so, it must be true, right…?

As it’s also a snowy Sunday (first snow of the season), we decided to stay in and cook a nice roast pork to go with the Yorkshire puds, served with creamy mash (even if it’s a little lumpy, but there is plenty of butter and double cream to make up for it), carrots and marrow. Oh, and shamelessly topped with bisto gravy, which always remains me of our uni days together. Happy days!

Alright, it was actually the hubby who made it. But still, I helped with the salad 😉

It was good fun, simple to make and really satisfying – definitely a lot better than the shop bought ones (needless to say really). I’d recommend you give this a try. As a first time trial it took us almost two hours from start to finish but I’m sure you can make it quicker than that.

Heston Blumenthal has started a new TV series desmonstrating some of the recipes from his latest book. This week, the theme was the ever so seductive chocolate. So we thought we’d give the chocolate gateau a try, seeing as it looked easy to make and a lot of fun using popping candy.

You’ll see the results below. We made extra chocolate ganache for truffles (it was divine!) but in hindsight, I would have put it into the gateau to give it more height and substance. That and probably use a smaller tin too.

Roasting the shortbread biscuits for the base of the gateau

Popping candy packed full of ‘crackle’

Shortbread base mixed with popping candy – it gets you when you least expect it!

And as tradition goes in our family, the ‘official’ Christmas photo is of our little pooch, Jessie, sitting in front of the tree, even if it takes over half a day and two dozens of shots to get it right. So here it is, with a few behind the scene shots too.

Hubby has been busy wrapping presents and trying out a new recipe for mince pies. So it’s only right that I offer a little help by warming up some mulled wine to go with it.

Usually we use shortcrust pastry for mince pies but I rather like shortbread pastry similar to the ones from M&S. After a bit of searching online, we came across one from BBC Good Food that uses butter, flour and golden caster sugar – practically the recipe for shortbread biscuits.

The verdict: it has the crumbly texture similar to shortbread but it’s still quite flaky. Perhaps we haven’t mixed in the butter and flour properly. I guess the only way to know for sure is to make some more!